“Believe me, Runyon, I’d send someone else if I could, but that line has to be kept open. If that tunnel shuts down, the whole system goes with it.”

“What do they think happened?”

“Accident, one of the military guards that’s been stationed out there.”

“Accident?” Hook flipped his ashes into the wastebasket and looked out the window, which was gray with smoke and dust. “How do they know?”

“A man don’t stand in the middle of the tunnel in the middle of the night with a hotshot charging down grade on purpose.”

“Jesus,” Hook said.

“The engineer called it in. Took him half a mile to get shut down,” Eddie said. “He didn’t even know what he’d hit until he saw the guard’s boot stuck on the catwalk.”

“Alright, Eddie. I’ll take the popcar out.”

The popcar, sometimes called the popper, was a small gasoline powered trolley used mostly for track inspections. It could be an uncomfortable ride in the desert but was Hook’s only transportation at the moment.

“I released the engineer on to the next stop. He’ll catch a hotshot back. You can talk to him then.”

“Damn it, Eddie, I should take a look at things before the engine’s released.”

“There’s still another army guard assigned to duty out there. He might have some idea what’s going on.”

“I’ll check it out, Eddie.”

“This thing has to be wrapped up fast, Runyon. That line can’t be tied up. It ain’t the first tunnel accident out there, you know. They killed off half of Arizona building that damn thing.”

“What’s the rush, Eddie? The war’s over, hadn’t you heard? Japan has been bombed into oblivion.”

“I want this thing resolved, see. On top of everything else, that line is being upgraded, and there’s equipment and people. We can’t shut the railroad down while you play detective.”

“I am a detective, Eddie.”

“And there’s that other little problem, too,” Eddie said.

Hook’s pulse ticked up. Eddie had been looking to nail him for years.

“They give me a promotion over your head, Eddie?”

“In your dreams, Runyon. You might just recall dumping a boxcar back in Amarillo.”